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Role of Youth In Indian PoliticsPoliticsMay 11, 2009 • • • • • EmailDemocracy is the buzz word for our political system. But is it really so? Is it democracy that anation where a majority of population is below 40 elects a majority of people above 60 to power?Are we really satisfied with the way our country is being governed? Should it not bother us thatat the age people generally take retirement and rest, our politicians actually become eligible to beat the helm of affairs? Why is it so that people below 50 years are considered as political ‘kids’?The country desperately needs some young leaders who personify energy, enthusiasm, morality,and diligence. No doubt we have progressed a lot in the last 62 years but the development pacewould have been completely different had some young torchbearers led this process ofdevelopment.At the time of independence, Gandhi called upon the youth to participate actively in the freedommovement. Young leaders likes Nehru came to his reckoning and led the movement. But this isnot the case now. Nowadays we have only a handful of young leaders like Rahul Gandhi, SachinPilot, Varun Gandhi etc, but they are in the political scenario because they belong to influentialpolitical families. It is next to impossible to find a young leader with no political familybackground in the furor of politics.There can be two reasons for this deplorable scene of Indian politics. One may be that the youthtoday are not interested in actively participating in the political field. They are content with what

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they are doing and how the country is being governed. But this reason seems to hold no groundseeing the discontent shown by the youngsters towards cases like reservation, Jessica lal murdercase etc. The youth of modern India are aware of the problems facing our country and the worldat large. Given a chance they would be ready to change the political condition of the country forbetter.Second reason may be that young people are not given opportunities to prove themselvesclaiming that they are not equipped with experience to participate actively in the governance ofthe country. This reason seems to be more logical seeing the monopoly of old leaders in almostall the major political parties of the country. Old people should realize that proper developmentcan take place only when they make way for younger people to take control of the activities.There are few things which need to be clarified. One that youngsters do not mean people who are20 years old with no experience at all. Youth in this context is meant to refer people in their 30’sor early 40’s with a good mix of energy and experience. Two, it is not intended to mean that oldpeople should leave the political scene and rest. What is wanted is that they should be there butfor guidance because they are treasures of invaluable experience.There are a few things which I would like to suggest. There should be a retirement age forpoliticians as well which may be around 65 years. There should also be some educationalqualification for politicians. How can we give those illiterates the key to our country whom wecan not give the key to our house? People with serious criminal background should not beallowed to contest elections.As for the youth of our country, they can contribute in more ways than just contesting elections.Much can be done in areas like educating people, raising awareness about various social ills, andmany other areas.We can just wish that the next time we go to vote we find more names of youngsters who canmake our country a better place to live in.